The 1540 drought in Europe was a climatic event in Europe. In various palaeoclimatic analyses the temperature and precipitation regimes were reconstructed and compared to present-day conditions. On the basis of historical records Wetter et al. (2014) derived that during an eleven-month period there was little rain in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, possibly qualifying as a megadrought. These conclusions however were questioned by Büntgen et al. (2015) on the basis of additional data ( tree rings). Orth et al. (2016) concluded that in summer 1540 the mean temperature was above the 1966–2015 mean and with a probability of 20% exceeded that of the 2003 summer; however, the study's mean reconstruction suggests that the summer of 2003 was still overall hotter across much of Europe.

Scientific evaluation and discussion

The assumption of a megadrought in the year 1540 is primarily supported by more than 300 contemporary chronicles from across Europe, which consistently describe the effects of prolonged drought and heat, such as a significant precipitation deficit, extremely low levels of major rivers, widespread wildfires, the lowering of

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

levels (resulting in the drying up of wells), as well as severe consequences for agriculture and livestock farming. Particularly reliable sources include the extensive weather diary of Marcin Biem, the rector of the University of Kraków, whose records allow for the statistical reconstruction of precipitation levels in the

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

region for the year 1540. In contrast, a study published in 2015, based on the analysis of growth rings of various European tree species (

dendrochronology Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...

, also known as tree-ring dating), concluded that the conducted analyses did not provide evidence of an exceptional drought period throughout 1540. In their reply, the authors of the aforementioned study (Wetter et al.) pointed out that growth rings may sometimes incompletely or belatedly reflect hot and dry extremes, emphasizing the fact that discrepancies between instrumentally determined and dendrochronological data have often occurred in recent times during climatic "outliers" (the " divergence problem"). A publication from 2016 assumes that the average summer temperature in 1540 exceeded the corresponding average values of the 1966 to 2015 time series and, with a 20 percent probability, even surpassed the heatwave of the summer of 2003. In this context, the existing uncertainties regarding the available data, which hinder reliable temperature reconstructions for short-term anomalies during the last millennium, were also mentioned. The weather conditions of 1540 present a paradoxical situation since this exceptional year occurred during the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Mat ...

, which lasted approximately from the early 15th to the mid-19th century. However, the question raised by some studies focuses more on whether this singular event could serve as a "blueprint" for future climatic developments in this geographical context. According to several scientific studies, there has been a clear tendency worldwide towards the formation of warm and dry climates in recent decades. With further warming, the disappearance of existing climate zones and the establishment of new ones in Central Europe will likely occur, similar to what happened at least to some extent almost 500 years ago.

Description

The Swiss historian Christian Pfister described the events of 1540 in a newspaper interview: From the city of Münden there is a description of how in the year 1540 the ducal wine from the vineyard at was "so excellent" that it was preferred to foreign wine. Wilhelm Lotze
''Geschichte der Stadt Münden nebst Umgebung mit besonderer Hervorhebung der Begebenheiten des dreißigjährigen und siebenjährigen Krieges''
1878, p. 46. In the Swiss village of , "desperate people went over up and down in elevation every day, only to fill a few barrels of water in Lake Thun".

City fires

In the year 1540, there was an unusually high number of city fires, surpassed only during the height of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, in a year without major war damages. In Einbeck, the Kumme Wasser, a stream flowing through the city, was likely dried up. On "Annentag" (the day of Saint Anne), July 26th, a fire broke out, and the entire city was destroyed in the Einbeck city fire, with between 100 and 500 people dying. There are records of 32 additional city fires in German territory for the year 1540. The fires occurred during a time of political and religious conflicts surrounding the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. In many cases,

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

was suspected as the cause of the conflagrations, allegedly motivated by anti-Protestant sentiments. Vagabonds and beggars were often scapegoated, leading to a genuine paranoia regarding arsonists. The year 1540 also became known as the "Mordbrenner-Jahr" (year of arsonists).

References

Literature

External links